Pa. license bureau looks into Bushkill home involved in fatal fire

Friday

Jan 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The Pennsylvania Bureau of Human Services Licensing is opening an investigation into whether a property that houses special-needs residents and was the scene of a deadly fire Wednesday required a license.

DAVID PIERCE and BETH BRELJE

The Pennsylvania Bureau of Human Services Licensing is opening an investigation into whether a property that houses special-needs residents and was the scene of a deadly fire Wednesday required a license.

The man who died in the Wednesday afternoon fire at Keystone Residential Services had not been identified by the Pike County coroner as of Thursday night.

The fire, believed to be accidental, started around noon. It is still under investigation.

Keystone is not licensed by the Department of Public Welfare, the parent agency of the Bureau of Human Services Licensing.

If the home needed a license and was operating without one, the bureau will notify law enforcement and work collaboratively with them as appropriate, department spokeswoman Donna Kirker Morgan said Thursday.

Keystone Residential Services is across from the entrance to Bushkill Falls on Keystone Court. It includes a small row of apartments and a larger house shared by multiple residents. The larger house was the scene of the fire.

The residents there are impoverished and many have special needs.

In 2002, more than a dozen residents of the Keystone apartments were interviewed by state authorities, who had received complaints that owners Joan and Louis Bruno were "warehousing" elderly clients.

But the Brunos asserted then that the residents were not clients but simply tenants for whom they ran occasional errands, the Pocono Record reported at the time.

The residence had been fined $500 that year for operating a personal care home without a license.

The department returned the fine to the Brunos in 2002 after a few minor infractions were corrected.

Attempts to reach the Brunos on Thursday were unsuccessful. Their listed phone numbers were disconnected.